Network debugging tools such as Traceroute and Ping may be used to obtain information about network nodes and paths. However, these tools do not provide much information about the experience of a packet at each of multiple hops through a path. For example, no conventional tools adequately identify the autonomous systems, congestion, and other information on a per-hop basis through a path.
The problems with the current Traceroute and Ping tools are even more pronounced as Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) becomes more widely used, and which is expected to become the standard IP protocol throughout the Internet and other networks. For example, in the context of the Internet, these tools either provide or rely on host names stored in the Domain Name System (DNS). However, it is known that DNS entries, and especially IPv6 entries, may be missing or erroneous. When the returned DNS name of an intermediate hop is erroneous, the Traceroute result can be very confusing to the user. The user may misinterpret the result as a routing issue or other issue that in fact may or may not exist.